A “#MeToo” Movement for Political Consent

James Bovard writes that we need a #MeToo movement for political consent, comparing to non-consensual sex the fact that even though you vote for your elected officials chances are that you don’t really consent to their votes or policies that result in violating your rights and your life, liberty or property. Yet, that is mostly what public officials and their enforcers do.

But that is the system that we have in place. The masses elect people to “represent” them and to “serve” their needs, but because the system is a compulsory monopoly and the masses must obey the authorities’ laws, policies, mandates or prohibitions, those in power can really do whatever they want and get away with it, no matter how dishonest, corrupt or criminal.

And it is worse the more centralized the system is. That is why if this society is going to survive as a civilized society, it must get rid of the centralized apparatus in Washington. It shouldn’t have been created to begin with. The more decentralized the better.

A lot of people just can’t or won’t grasp that. The conservatives who say they love “limited government” don’t want to admit the truth, because they are so mystical in their “love of America” and just a little too indoctrinated to love the government in Washington whose bureaucrats have more or less ruined America. The talk radio crowd are authoritarians who love and worship government police and government military and thus they love the Washington apparatus. The thought of dismantling the empire overseas, closing down all those U.S. military bases and bringing all the troops back to the U.S. (and putting them in the private sector!) frightens the conservatives and nationalists who “love America.” They believe in American Exceptionalism, not the Golden Rule.

And the people on the left want “democratic socialism,” or socialism, or communism, whichever word you like. They mean the same thing, quite frankly. They want to “destroy capitalism,” even though they have cars, iPhones, TVs, and all the crappy junk food they can eat as a result of capitalism, not socialism. What’s going on in Venezuela is what they will get if they really want socialism in America, the empty store shelves, the long lines, the mass starvation, the government killings of dissidents, military takeovers of industries, and their beloved Maduro and his minions living high off the hog at the people’s expense. That is what happens when the government takes over industry and has the power to steal wealth and earnings from the people. The rulers live off their slaves’ labor, which is pretty much what we have now in Amerika.

And as we have seen from the anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant morons like Trump and his ditto-head followers is that they actually love socialism, too, and not capitalism. Capitalism being “free markets,” that is, which necessarily includes a free market in labor and employment. If the anti-immigrant crowd wants to deport foreigners or block people from coming to America, arrest businessmen for hiring unauthorized workers regardless of their being peaceful and not harming anyone, then those anti-immigrant collectivists are really against free markets, and for government-controlled or government-owned markets, i.e. socialism.

So now we have elections next week. And for what? So Democrats can be empowered to impeach Trump or have special investigations of him, and attempt to repeal the Trump tax cuts that have enabled people to keep more of what rightfully belongs to them? Like the conservatives, the people on the left don’t seem to like freedom very much, as their policies have been mainly to confiscate the wealth or earnings of others, based on envy and covetousness. But then, the anti-immigrant crowd are also acting on covetousness when they approve of government police-state interfering in the honest, peaceful labor of foreigners. “They’re taking jobs away from Americans,” and all that crap. American “citizens” are entitled to a job by an employer in America. So, it isn’t just the people on the left who have a covetous entitlement mentality.

And let’s elect more Republicans to Congress to further expand the police state, further empower the military as they’re doing now, further expand the surveillance state, and all the bureaucracies that Republicans love as much as the Democrats. The Rethugs are True Believers, that’s for sure. (Read Laurence Vance’s articles exposing the Republicans.)

So I’m not sure if we can have a #MeToo movement for political consent as long as the system of institutionalized non-consent is in place. Let’s have a free society instead. Okay.